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Next week the Senate is poised to resurrect some federal surveillance powers that expired in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. A handful of senators are hoping to force through reforms to better protect Americans' privacy.

In March the USA Freedom Act expired, somewhat unceremoniously, as lawmakers were unable to reach a consensus on a renewal as the pandemic began to pick up steam and overtake all public policy priorities.

The USA Freedom Act authorized (but restricted) the collection of Americans' phone and internet record metadata that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been gathering without citizen knowledge before Edward Snowden exposed it. A compromise bill, the USA Freedom Act added some buffers to how the NSA would collect the data and required more reporting of the activities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts, so citizens would have a better sense of the extent that this "foreign" surveillance was in fact targeting Americans.

The NSA has since abandoned the metadata collection, which had proven ineffective at tracking down terror threats even as it violated Americans' Fourth Amendment rights. But the Act has other surveillance components (authorizing roving wiretaps, tracking so-called "lone wolf" terrorists). And even though the NSA has stopped using its metadata collection powers, President Donald Trump's administration has asked for the entire USA Freedom Act to be renewed, intact, permanently.

Fortunately, that's not going to happen: The House passed a renewal bill in March that officially killed off the records program once and for all. Now surveillance critics in the Senate, such as Rand Paul (RKy.), Mike Lee (RUtah) and Ron Wyden (DOre.), are pushing for further reforms to the way the government targets American citizens for secret surveillance. Their demands for amendments to the House's bill stopped the bill from moving forward in March. Now the Senate plans to consider the House's bill along with these proposed amendments.

The USA Freedom Act played no role in the FBI's use of the FISA court to secretly wiretap former Trump aide Carter Page. But the discovery that the FBI played fast and loose with the truth when requesting these warrants from the FISA court, and the subsequent evidence that the FBI regularly does a terrible job of documenting its evidence when targeting any Americans for FISA surveillance, have created an opening for civil libertarians to call for stronger privacy protections.

The Hill reports:

Sen.Rand Paul (RKy.) will get a vote on his amendment that would bar the FISA court from issuing warrants for American citizens and instead require law enforcement agencies such as the FBI to obtain a warrant from a normal court established under Article III of the Constitution.

Sens.Mike Lee (RUtah) and Patrick Leahy (DVt.) will get a vote on their amendment to require the appointment of amicus curiae, or outside advisers, with expertise in privacy and civil liberties to advise the FISA court on surveillance warrants.

Sens.Steve Daines (RMont.) andRon Wyden (DOre.) will get a vote on an amendment to bar law enforcement from obtaining internet browsing and search history without a warrant.

These are all great amendments. Unfortunately, they will probably fail. Far too many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are against serious surveillance reforms.

Senators like Paul are banking on Trump's outrage over what happened to Page to push these additional reforms through. Establishment Republicans and Democrats are banking on Trump only caring about how surveillance affects him and the people around him.

We'll soon find out which side is correct. My money's on the establishment, but I'll be happy to be wrong this time.

Original post:
FISA Surveillance and Possible Reforms Are Back on the Senate's Agenda - Reason

The Lompoc Aftershock is heading to Modesto over the 4th of July weekend for the NSA State Championships with games beginning at 8 a.m. on Independence Day. Then they're off to Las Vegas the following weekend to compete in the NSA Western World Series against some of the top teams in the West, with opening ceremonies on Wednesday, July 16 and pool play beginning at 8 a.m. Thursday. The team includes (front row, from left)Mariah Escobedo, Mariah Villalobos, Jasmin Salas, Tasi Taua; (second row, from left)Amber Hooks, Jacqueline Castaneda, Bianca Gonzales, Samantha Hernandez, Antoinette Terrones; (third row, from left)Alexia Wilhite, Yesenia Vega, Armani Garcia, Alina Terrones, Yesenia Carrillo, Sierra Preston; and (back row, from left) coach Emilio Salas, coach Chris Wilhite, manager Benny Garcia and coach Frank Hernandez. Not pictured is coach Scotty Marshall.In an effort to help defray the cost of competing in the NSA World Series, Aftershock is having a chicken barbecue fundraiser on Saturday, July 12, at the Elks Lodge in Lompoc from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. or until sold out. The donation is $9 per plate. The team is also accepting donations via GoFundMe at http://www.gofundme.com/aftershockfastpitch.

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Photos: Antoinette Terrones over the years | | santamariatimes.com - Santa Maria Times

I have yet to cover any REIT during my time writing on Seeking Alpha, primarily because they're already so well covered. Well, I have come across a little known one, without that much coverage at all, National Storage Affiliates (NYSE:NSA), and I quite like it.

Image: National Storage Affiliates logo

This business gets an A+ rating from my Hideaway model, which is how I came to find it. At the time of writing, it is trading up more than 5% on a pretty good day for the markets in general, but I don't think it's too late for investors with a long-term horizon to get in. Let's explore a little.

The name likely gives the business away, but I feel for these smaller, lesser-known companies that I should give a brief overview to my readers. National Storage Affiliates owns and operates regional self-storage facilities. You know, the garages that people rent for $100+ per month and fill with all the junk that won't fit in their regular garage.

If you've paid attention while driving around, you have likely seen storage units popping up all over the place in the last decade. They are an easy-to-operate, very boring business, which is really what we want to be looking for when it comes to investing.

One thing of note, however, is the lack of moat. I could buy a large plot of land today, build a storage unit, undercut on pricing, and begin building a cash flow while competing with the big players in the industry. That is what's happening, too. There are plenty of mom-and-pop storage units out there, making a relatively stable living from nothing more than garages on an empty plot of land.

As with most businesses, consolidation began to hit. Synergies began to form that allowed consolidated storage units to operate and reach customers more efficiently, and billion-dollar firms were created. That is what happened in National Storage Affiliates' case, and it continues to happen today.

Image: Map showing states with an NSA presence

National Storage Affiliates is comprised of 10 individual businesses, or Participating Regional Operators ("PROs"). These businesses have their operating regions, with their own presidents responsible for building out a storage portfolio. National Storage Affiliates as a whole then support each.

Image: NSA Brands

An individual PRO can buy a storage unit that meets their portfolio need, and it will be acquired using National Storage Affiliates' leverage, providing greater ease of operation for the PRO. Over the course of 2019, these PROs acquired 69 properties across the United States at a cost of $447.8M.

Public Storage (NYSE:PSA), a much larger storage REIT, recently warned that Q2 revenue would take a hit from the current economic crisis caused by COVID-19. The company stated there was a significant reduction in demand for self-storage space and a significant decline in move-in volumes since late March.

Image: Tweet from Aaron Edelheit

This tweet from Aaron Edelheit, CEO of Mindset Capital, quite correctly points to many of the reasons investors are becoming skeptical of storage. There's just so many of them. There is, however, one point that I'd strongly disagree with: "more of our lives moving to the digital realm," thus reducing the need for self-storage. We're not looking to store less, and we're not even buying less (yet). There's still ample demand for storage; look at this 2004-present Google Trends graph:

Image: Google Trends for "Self Storage" Topic

The interest peaked in July of 2017, but we were still above average interest in April 2020. The graph also shows that interest is heading back up in May.

My take here is that we are overbuilt, but the best locations will be snapped up by the large operators.

Turning now to the red meat, the financials. NSA is priced a little higher than its peers, but it is also growing almost every metric at significantly larger rates. Take, for instance, revenue growth:

As it's a REIT, we want the assets to be growing over time too, and NSA is growing its assets at a 17.69% CAGR over the last three years. Here are those same peers compared:

Profitability, on a comparable basis, is a little weak. Peers have much higher net income margins, returns on equity, and returns on assets than National Storage Affiliates. The explanation for this is quite simple; all those PROs we mentioned in the beginning, they receive distributions as minority interests.

For this reason, I decided to compare NSA to peers on an operating income level. Unfortunately, the firm still falls short there. This is due to a higher SG/A cost, as well as higher depreciation than peers. The following table shows those values as a percentage:

Depreciation isn't a bad thing, though; it allows NSA to have a lower taxable income and is done on a straight-line basis. With proper maintenance, the buildings are likely still worth something, and thankfully storage units do not require that much upkeep.

SG/A being so high is also a result of many different operating firms. Could this be better? Absolutely. If cost cuts are needed, this gives NSA a lot of "padding" to get it done.

Finally, FFO is at $1.53 per share over the trailing 12 months. This has NSA trading at ~18x FFO at the time of writing, an affordable price for a REIT that handily has its dividend covered.

As mentioned in the introduction to this article, I selected National Storage to research thanks to its "A+" Hideaway Score. The Hideaway Score combines momentum, quality, and value scores to create a composite score. A+ stocks, in early testing, are beating the market quite handedly, while C stocks perform in line with the S&P 500.

Here is how the five stocks discussed in this article rank:

Data by YCharts

Chart: FFO/S TTM for 5 years

I mentioned in the financials section that NSA has an ~18x P/FFO metric hanging over its head today.

Looking at the graph above, we can see that the firm continues to have success in driving its FFO number higher. This is mostly a factor of newer properties joining the mix, but it's good for investors nonetheless.

I think over the coming years, we will start to see more and more consolidation in the space. I have mentioned throughout the article that this is an easily entered space by almost anyone with land, and I think that slowly begins to consolidate over time.

If we do see a downswing in storage use, it will hit the mom-and-pop shops the hardest (less capital to handle a down period), thus allowing the larger firms to pick up new locations at a discount.

If NSA gave up some of its traditional revenue growth (24.8% 3Y CAGR) and fell more in line with the storage market's 6%, it could reasonably see FFO of $1.60-$1.65 in FY20, and that would, in my opinion, be a slow/down year for a firm of this size and growth capacity.

With $1.65 in FFO at an 18x multiple, the firm's 2020 fair value would be in the realm of $30/share, an 8% gain over today's prices. I should note that this is my low-end estimate. If NSA can come out strong during its next earnings call and show that it does not see the same big drops PSA is experiencing, a price multiple of 20-22x is much more reasonable given the company's higher rate of growth.

20-22x would carry a $33-36.30 price target at $1.65 FFO.

National Storage Affiliates is showing great value at these levels for investors with a long-term horizon. Storage isn't going away, and the larger firms are best equipped to withstand a near-term downswing in move-in rates.

I am a buyer of this stock under $30/share.

Disclosure: I am/we are long NSA. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

See the original post here:
National Storage Affiliates Is A Long-Term Buy At These Prices - Seeking Alpha

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New Delhi: China will not be able to tide over the coronavirus crisis like it did with the 1989 Tiananmen Square episode, former National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon said Wednesday, adding that the impact of Covid-19 will continue to simmer leading to a huge reputational loss for China as well as other countries.

This is going to simmer, this is not like Tiananmen. This is a very different situation, Menon said. Its a huge reputational loss for China. Bigger the country, the bigger the loss of reputation. The Chinese have developed a reputation over the years, which now has been turned against them. Reputation will be used as a stick to beat China with.

Menon, who is also a former foreign secretary, was speaking at an online seminar hosted by the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS). ThePrint was the media partner for the seminar Looking at Post-COVID World: The China Dimension.

According to Menon, who is also chairman of the ICS advisory board, the pandemic has also shown the nervousness with which governments and leaders around the world have dealt with the massive crisis, be it in their individual capacities or at the multilateral stage of the G20 or the UN.

If you look at the level of rhetoric, the shriller the rhetoric, the higher the claims of victory the more it sounds to me that they (world leaders) are really nervous, that they really dont know what they are doing, Menon said.

There is a shouting match that is going on between the leaders now. They are not working together. You saw the G20, you saw the UNSC, they are not managing to work together.

Also read:Pressure mounts on India to call out China for Covid as it readies to take lead role at WHO

On the growing tensions between the US and China, especially over the origin of the virus, Menon said the problems between these major powers had been rising even before the outbreak of the pandemic.

He, however, added that the US narrative on the origin of the virus will continue to rage until the US presidential elections scheduled to take place in November this year.

I think we need to wait until the US elections There is a bipartisan consensus in the US on China and it is much harsher than it has been for a very long time. So no matter what happens in the US elections there is no going back, the former foreign secretary added.

Menon also said despite these rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, both will find it painful to decouple themselves from their economic bonding.

Lets not forget they are also tied to each other like the Siamese twins on the economic side and that decoupling will be really painful for both of them. There will come a time when they will follow their economic interests, he added.

Also read:Modi had turned his back on NAM and SAARC. Covid brings them back on his table

Comparing the pandemic with the 2008-09 financial meltdown crisis, Menon said, Unlike in 2008-end and the beginning of 2009 when for most of the powers, their leadership was secure, they knew they were either going to be there or that they were not going to be there and so they could do the right thing without any fear of any effects on their political future Today you have an issue, which frankly, the leaders dont understand there isnt a kind of scientific or expert advice that you have experience of in the economic field.

He said for India the challenge will be to see where the money goes citing the $60 billion limit that the Modi government has set for coronavirus-related relief.

Ultimately you will have to see what people do with their money. Why are we (India) running such a huge trade deficit with China? This is because Indians are spending their money in China buying things. Thats where I would look six months from now, he added.

He also cautioned against India aligning with the US or with China.

Nobody shares our interest entirely I dont see any alliance really working for us. You need to position yourself where you have better relationships with both the US and China than they have with each other, said Menon, who was also Indias former Beijing envoy from 2000-2003.

Also read:India to push for Pakistans blacklisting at FATF after Handwara & Keran terror attacks

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Covid-19 different from Tiananmen, China wont be able to tide over crisis: Ex-NSA Menon - ThePrint

Venkat, a scientist of Indian origin in the US, finds that NSA, his employer, has been systematically spying on the Indian whos who. Fearing that this might be used by vested interests to blackmail India, he steals the proof and somehow makes it back to Delhi.

But little does he know that a dangerous nexus of global businessmen, US military and their minions from Pakistan with sleeper cells in India are all behind him. Riya Kaul, his former college friend and a journalist, becomes an innocent pawn in the game that follows. Venkat and Riya are almost taken down by the masterminds but for Devavrata Jatashankar Singh, aka Shaitan, a former operative of Rashtriya Rifles and currently a trusted go-to man of the national security advisor of India itself.

For a debut novel, Predators and Prey is superlatively amazing at many levels. Author Abhinav Agarwal has put in tremendous amount of research and the result is that it is impossible to keep the book down once started.

The characterisation of Delhi Durbaras a media tycoon in the book calls itwarrants a special mention. Abhinav has described the way power is brokered through vested interests in such a detailed manner that one would feel the story is a real one or at least inspired from real events. The titbits quoted from Mahabharata and other ancient Indian texts are another added delight.

Apart from a very engaging story, the book also sensitises readers about the fallibility of individual privacy. Even as we carry our precious cellphones everywhere, we know that somebody is recording every move of ours even with the devices switched off and if they can, use it against us. The sole consolation at least in the story is Indias own trusted spy network and the loyalty of heroes such as Deva and Venkat, not to mention, the rigour that our special forces operatives undergo that enables them to take on powerful enemies.

Through Riya, the female protagonist, the reader is given a birds eye view of the compromise, corruption and espionage that is rampant in the media sector. A widow of a brave soldier killed by such powers, her courage stands out.

As the world around her falls to parts, we get to know the dangers that our country is exposed to. Devas courage and feats along with the other powerful ingredients form a great material for a big screen adaptation. The readers are in for a treat when the last page drops a clue for the next adventure of Deva. Abhinav Agarwal sure takes the benchmark high up for Indian thriller scene.

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'Predators and Prey' book review: A Thrilling Ride - The New Indian Express